UBUD, Bali (dpa) – Finding Murni’s Art Studio requires a quick jungle trek off the beaten tourist track of Ubud – Bali’s famed cultural hub that has been drawing artists and artisans for centuries.
Murni, whose real name is I Gusti Ayu Kadek Murniasih, is a relative newcomer to Ubud’s art colony.Married to Italian artist “Mondo”, who like several Ubud-based painters prefers to be known by one name, Murni started painting under her husband’s guidance 12 years ago.The subject matter of most of her paintings verge on eroticism.“I prefer to call it fantasy art,” said Murni, holding up a picture of a three-breasted figure in her jungle-enclosed studio.Asked where she got the eye-catching idea, Murni answered with a smile, “Actually, I have three tits, a birth defect.”Such sexual frankness from an Indonesian woman seems unique to Bali, a well-established outpost of Hinduism in the world’s most populous Moslem nation.Nearly 90 per cent of Indonesia’s 220 million people profess to be Moslem, although the country’s first imported religion was Hinduism, brought to the sprawling archipelago by Indian traders more than one thousand years ago.While Islam was adopted in central Java in the 16th and 17th centuries, Bali’s population clung to Hinduism, and drew displaced Brahmans, performers and artisans, many of whom had formerly been employed in Javanese sultans, to the island.Many of the artisans settled in Ubud, 20 kilometres north of Denpasar, Bali’s capital, leaving behind a deep heritage of arts, crafts and dance that have made the city famous.Walter Spies, one of Bali’s best known and most flamboyant foreign painters, arrived on the island in 1927 in search of a Gaugain-like Tahiti paradise. He lived and worked for more than a decade in Ubud, which he lauded as “the real Bali.”Spies, the son of a German diplomat, did much to turn Ubud into a culture magnet for other Western artists seeking tropical inspiration and Eastern mysticism, not to mention a hint of hedonism and bare- breasted women that Bali was once famed for. They began covering up around four decades ago.Spies’ dramatic death – he was deported from Bali in 1942 for holding a German passport but the ship taking him to prison was bombed, and sank, with Spies and other prisoners perishing in their locked cells – added to his romantic myth.His house remains a tourist attraction as a part of Ubud’s Tjampuhan Hotel. Perhaps a more lasting tribute to Spies, is that even now his paintings are spawning imitations in the plethora of art galleries in the city and its outskirts.Other well-known foreign artists who followed Spies to Bali include Rudolf Bonnet, Miquel Covarrubias, Issac Israels, Adrian-Jean Le Mayeur de Merpres, Theo Meier, Willem and Maria Hofker, Emilo Ambron, Auke Sonnega, Romuldo Locatelli, Lee Man Fong, Antonio Blanco, Arie Smit and Donald Friend.Blanco, who was in Ubud between 1952 to 1999, died in his adopted home at the age of 88. In his memory, his family have constructed an dome shaped museum, dedicated to his art, which was opened to the public in March, last year.Blanco in his lifetime had become a tourist attraction himself, welcoming visitors to his studio and providing them with a tour of his paintings, many of which glorify the female body.“He painted women because he loved women’s figures, created by God, but not for sex,” explained Mario, Blanco’s son, an artist himself who now works in his father’s former studio near the museum.“I’ve inherited the Blanco style,” said Mario, although he does not apparently share his father’s obsession with nude females. “I’m probably the only second generation artist in Ubud.”The sole survivor of the older generation of foreign artists in Bali is Arie Smit, a Dutch painter in his eighties, who still lives in Ubud.The self-proclaimed “patriarch” of the new generation of Ubud artists is Symon, a Michigan-born American artist who migrated to Ubud in 1978 and set up his “Danger Art” studio.“There is a new generation. The Ubud art scene didn’t die with Hans Snell and Rudolf Bonnet,” said Symon.While Ubud continues to attract the artists, it is no longer drawing as many collectors, especially among the nouveau riche Asian businessmen who flocked to Bali snapping up art work as an investment in the late 1980s and early 1990s.Many of Ubud’s artists are now forced to exhibit their work elsewhere, especially in Bangkok and Singapore.“Bangkok is the hottest place right now in art happening, and has taken over from Singapore which use to be the place to show,” said Symon, who was planning a Bangkok exhibition in late January.Murni is meanwhile preparing for an exhibition at Nam Thong art gallery in Bangkok. “There is a lot of art activity up there (in Bangkok) but Ubud is still the most cohesive, popular, total artists colony trip going,” insisted Symon.